Pro S. Roscio Amerino

14 CICBRO
accuser ouo;lit to use ? Ought he uot to sliow tliat the man
who is called to answer the charge is characterized by a
unique recklessness, a savage disposition, and a brutish
nature ; that his life was given up to all kinds o£ vice
and villaiuy ; and finally that his whole character was
shattered and blasted in utter ruin. Tou have brought
none of these charges against Sextus Eoscius, not even for
the sake of slanderous depreciation.
39. Sextus Eoscius murdered his father. What sort of
a man is he ? A depraved youug man, a good-for-nothing
led on by other men ? He is over forty years of age. A
veteran assassin, of course, a desperado of much experience
in murder ? But you have not heard this even
mentioned by the accuser. Then of coiu*se it was wanton
indvilgence and a vast burden of debt aud uncontrollable
avarice that drove him to this crime ? From the charge of
wauton indulgence Erucius cleared him when he stated
that he was hardly ever present even at any dinner-party
and he never owed any man anything ; moreover, what
avarice can exist in the character of a man who, as his very
accuser cast in his teeth, always lived in the country and
spent his time in cultivatiug his land, a mode of life which
is far removed from avarice and closely connected with the
observance of moral duty ?
40. What then suggested to Sextus Eoscius the frenzied
act that you charge him with ? " His father," quoth he,
" did not like him," For what reason ? Of course that
reason too must have been well grounded and weighty and
unmistakable : for as it is incredible that a father should
have been done to death by his son without numerous and
weighty reasons, so too it is improbable that a son shoidd
have been strongly disliked by his parent without many
weighty and cogent reasous.
41. Let us return again then to the same point, and inquire
what were these serious favdts in an only son which
caused his father t^ dislike him. But it is plain there was
not a single one. Therefore his father must have been
mad to hate without cause a son of his own begetting.
But he surely was the steadiest man in the world. Consequently
this conclusion is surely clear— if the father was